Business Models | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

How Top Note Tonic Pivoted Beverage Categories and Understood Their Market

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Top Note has pivoted away from syrups towards niche ready-to-drink, already mixed sparkling tonics, using their foray into syrups to further understand the mixer category and build their brand. Mary reflected that having a good bank as a partner is important and that learning about money has been the most useful thing that she has picked up as an entrepreneur.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Creativity Is Essential To Food Entrepreneurship

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Figuring out the best way to finance food businesses by optimizing their capital structure to reach minimum efficient scale is an undervalued creative exercise. But the myriad of challenges that confront entrepreneurs, from finding the right suppliers, co-packers, distributors, brokers or even the right target customer also demand creativity.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

MobCraft Beer’s Creative Sourcing of Recipes and Financing

45 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

MobCraft beer is a brewery and taproom with a unique business model of crowdsourcing ideas for beer recipes from their customers. Knowing how much equity they needed vs. debt to finance their facility build out and equipment needs helped them pitch specific asks to both banks and investors, including for their $2 million tap room and production facility.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Growing Madison Sourdough Intentionally Through Vertical Integration

1 hour & 15 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Madison Sourdough has grown using a vertically integrated business model by adding a restaurant that highlights their baked goods and bakery. They have also added an artisanal grain mill to their production processes, sourcing much of the flour themselves from local producers.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Jonny Hunter Of Underground Food Collective On Thinking Bigger in the Food System

1 hour & 30 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective talks about his wish that values around local and sustainable food could be used to create systems that have scalable efficiencies that are affordable to consumers. He advocates for working together to build and sustain the infrastructure that would support processing and other means to scale up the local food system.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

A Steady, Slow Growth Path For Quince and Apple’s Niche Domination

1 hour & 10 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Because Quince and Apple has labor-intensive, artisanal products, the best strategy was not to compete on quantity or price. Instead, they chose to compete by dominating an emerging niche (pairing their products with specialty cheeses) while telling the defensibly unique story of their artisanal processes.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

How Love The Wild Built A National Brand For Frozen Farmed Fish

1 hour & 5 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Within six months of launching their company they got their product out in front of consumers, trying out 127 product variations over an additional 18 months in just two stores. Once they honed in on their product, they rapidly expanded into distribution and raised multiple rounds of funding to support their growth.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Food Business Brands Evolve With The Consumer

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Originally branded as Ethnic Spicery, Flavor Temptations changed their brand to fully communicate the joyful, family-building experience of making memories through Indian cooking so that their brand resonated more deeply with their target consumer. They also changed their packaging to better share their values and to stand out on grocery store shelves.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Kill Your Darlings: Food and Beverage Business Evolution

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Some entrepreneurs are uncomfortable with their business idea or product evolving as their business develops. However, most entrepreneurs start out trying to implement one idea, only to get feedback from consumers that the real business opportunity is in a different product, category or maybe even a different business model.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Your Place Can Shape Your Business Model Path

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Different business models have paths i.e. divergent roads that entrepreneurs can choose to follow to achieve their business goals. Choosing one means saying no to another, at least initially, as each path has different scale requirements and requires different levels and sources of capitalization.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Essential Advice For Food Startups

15 minute Free read by Adam Haen

Startup food businesses have a multitude of things to consider and do before they every make their product commercially for customers. This guide walks new and aspiring food and beverage business owners through these essential considerations, everything from finding a good mentor to insurance to pricing.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Execution Matters More Than Your Big, Brilliant Idea

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Entrepreneurship and the "Eureka" moment where the entrepreneur has their big, brilliant idea is often glorified in the media and American mythology. What is more difficult is figuring out how to execute on that idea by building the right team/processes and optimizing every aspect of the business for long-term financial success.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

What’s Your Story? Speaking To Your Audiences’ Needs

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

With consumers, entrepreneurs should develop in-depth personas about their target customer and use the language that speaks directly to their unmet need. When speaking to funders, entrepreneurs need to tell the story of their business model, their revenue model and their brand positioning i.e. the story they reinforce with consumers.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Community Supported Agriculture – New Models for Changing Markets

68 pages of Free report content by USDA

The CSA business model has evolved significantly. New products, season extensions, multi-farm collaborations, new shareholder groups, marketing collaborations, innovative aggregation and delivery strategies, new urban production connections, and health and wellness alliances are among the current trends reshaping the CSA business.

Books or Guide about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Are You Ready to Start a CSA?

8 pages of Free report content by University of Tennessee Extension

Marketing is vital to the potential success of a direct marketing enterprise, including that of CSAs. Marketing is also inherent to many drivers of profitability including managing costs, production quality and efficiency, pricing for profit, achieving some minimum level of sales volume, building repeat customers, and managing risk.

Books or Guide about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture

Define It: Categories In Action

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

What category means in the context of a grocery store is difficult to define. Categories could be defined as groups of products that meet a similar consumer need or that can substitute for each other. This allows something like snacks, as a category, to cover many different types of products and have a plethora of sub-categories (salty snacks, sweet snacks, etc.).

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups | Growing and Scaling

A Farmer’s Guide To A Pick-Your-Own Operation

28 pages of Free report content by University of Tennessee Extension

Producers interested in a Pick Your Own (PYO) farming business model should analyze whether or not market potential exists before developing the enterprise. Farmers should conduct a market analysis to determine if a potentially profitable market exists for their PYO.

Books or Guide about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Shared-Use Kitchens And Their Tenants: A Shared Path to Financial Sustainability

1 hour & 40 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

FEED Kitchens is a shared-use kitchen that also serves as a business incubator for food businesses. Currently, about 80% of their revenue is from fee-for-service kitchen use. They would needabout 45%-50% use (24 hours a day, 365 days a year), up from their current 35% and with a few more anchor tenants to completely cover costs with fee-for-service revenue only.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups | Growing and Scaling

Innovation in Food Is Different Than Tech

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Big food companies realize that they need to innovate. Rather than innovating only in-house, many have been acquiring or strategically investing in new brands at a rapid pace. Innovation in food needs to be matched with an emotional and cultural connection to the consumer through relentless communication about food company's brand promise.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Entertainment Farming and Agri-Tourism

16 pages of Free report content by NCAT/ATTRA

Small diversified farms are ideally suited to agri-entertainment. The chief qualification for the rural landowner who expects to make a living from the land through agri-tourism is the desire and the ability to cater to tourists and meet their expectations of a farm visit.

Books or Guide about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling